Maria's First Christmas

THE GIGGLE!!

Okay... ignore the silly song that Jon makes up! "Maria's got a duck on her butt" only makes sense if you've seen her adorable yellow pants with... well, yeah - a duck on her butt!

Anyway, this is a pretty good clip of her adorable giggle. We could listen to it all day long! Enjoy.

Catching up...

"Bath time? Yippee!"

"I just can't stop smiling..."

"... especially when I'm being tickled!"

"I love to fall asleep on Aunt Chrissy."

"Here I am, just loungin' around. This is my fun new ball next to me. Come over and I'll show you how I play with it. (And by 'play with it' I mean try to eat it.")

"I'm all bundled up & ready for a Wisconsin winter. Well... maybe not."

We haven't written in a while... so we thought we'd post a bunch of miscellaneous pictures so that you can see how Maria is doing. She's growing FAST and really interacting with people. She also has a giggle that can melt your heart! As soon as we get a good video of it, we'll be sure to share it with you all.

Puke = "I love you" in baby talk :)

Watch carefully...
Maria spits up right in dad's face and he doesn't even notice right away!!!

3 Months!

Well, folks, yesterday Maria officially turned 3 months old. We hear that things are supposed to get easier from here... we'll see about that!!!

We celebrated by having her pictures taken at Sears. It was quite an experience.

Note to self: Avoid all portrait studios just prior to any major holiday!
But we have some pretty great shots of our little cutie pie! We'll show them off soon.

Here's some highlights about Maria:

She currently weighs 12lbs 8ozs. She smiles A LOT. She has officially become a thumb-sucker... as long as she can find it! Her favorite toy is an iPod-ish little device (a gift from her cousin, Alex) that blinks lights & plays songs - songs that mom & dad hear in their sleep all night long! She is sleeping through the night quite beautifully, but has absolutely no need for naps during the day. She has (sadly) grown out of her 0-3 month clothes, but it's fun to put her in all her 3-6 month stuff!

We are incredibly thankful today for Maria Katharine... and we can't even remember what life was like without her!

Happy Thanksgiving!

"Good morning! It's time to watch the parade. I hope I get to eat some turkey-flavored formula later! Gobble, Gobble, Gobble."

"Hmmm... my phone's ringing. I wonder who it could be?!"

"Oh, hi Grandma! No, I'm not busy. Mom & Dad just keep putting me on the floor to take pictures of me. They're pretty annoying. (But don't tell them I said that!)"

"Yay! Grandma's coming over!"